[R-G] Pakistan Not Eligible for Similar N-deal: Burns

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

The Bush administration has failed to achieve many of its foreign
policy objectives, but it has enjoyed some successes as well, and the
most significant success may be to trade Pakistan up for India. --
Yoshie

<http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/01/stories/2008080155501400.htm>
Pakistan not eligible for similar n-deal: Burns

Washington: The former Under Secretary of State of Political Affairs,
Nicholas Burns, one of the architects of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal,
feels Pakistan cannot expect a similar pact, a day after its Prime
Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani demanded such a deal from the U.S.

Mr. Burns also pressed for the speedy approval of the deal ahead of
the IAEA taking up the India-specific safeguards pact for approval,
saying it was "good" for both the countries besides helping strengthen
the non-proliferation regime.

"India's trust, its credibility, the fact that it has promised to
create a state-of-the-art facility, monitored by the IAEA, to begin a
new export control regime in place, because it has not proliferated
the nuclear technology, we can't say that about Pakistan." said Mr.
Burns when asked whether the U.S. would offer a nuclear deal with
Pakistan on the lines of the Indo-U.S. deal during a debate on the
nuclear agreement at the Brookings Institution.

After meeting U.S. President George W. Bush, Mr. Gilani demanded a
nuclear deal similar to the one Washington has forged with New Delhi,
assuring the nuclear proliferation network of its scientist, A. Q.
Khan, was broken and would not be repeated.

"There should be no preferential [treatment], there should be no
discrimination. And if they want to give civilian nuclear status to
India, we would also expect the same for Pakistan too," said Mr.
Gilani at a gathering under the aegis of the Council on Foreign
Relations and the Middle East Institute.

On the Indo-U.S. pact, Mr. Burns, who was the U.S. pointsman for the
deal, said: "My conviction is that this deal strengthens the
non-proliferation regime... it makes India a stakeholder. I am for
this agreement because it is good for both countries.... The civilian
nuclear deal is a symbolic centre piece of the bilateral relations."

He also gave a Teheran link to the nuclear deal when he said a swift
approval by the IAEA, NSG and the U.S. Congress would send a strong
message to countries like Iran "to play by the rules" and for
strengthening the non-proliferation regime. "If you play by the
rules.... there will be benefits," he reminded Tehran.

Mr. Burns, who stepped down in March and was appointed as a special
envoy to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the deal, also
stressed the U.S. has in place "the right measures to protect" its
interests by retaining the right to terminate the agreement. He
asserted the 123 Agreement is "absolutely' consistent with the Hyde
Act. — PTI